Baykeeper advocated in support of a resolution unanimously passed on June 17 by the Oakland City Council to oppose rail shipments of hazardous crude oil, coal, and petroleum coke (a toxic by-product of oil refining) through Oakland.

Jay Holcomb, the long-time leader of International Bird Rescue, died last week at 63 as a result of kidney cancer. He had volunteered for the organization since its founding in 1971 during the horrific collision of two oil tankers in San Francisco Bay, and became executive director of in 1986.

More than 50 swimmers, sailors, stand-up paddle boarders, kayakers, and rowers, along with the San Francisco Fire Department fire boat, the Hornblower hybrid ferry, a hybrid yacht, and the Baykeeper pollution patrol boat rode swift incoming currents under sunny skies, in the first-ever Bay Parade on Saturday June 14. It was a terrific show of support for a clean and healthy San Francisco Bay.

Update: The Alameda County fee for safe disposal of household hazardous waste was passed by the Stopwaste Board late last month. Baykeeper is glad that this program will continue to help keep toxic substances out of San Francisco Bay.

Baykeeper will soon launch a new project to document and photograph the San Francisco Bay shoreline by boat. Our goal is to provide information that can be used to improve protection for the Bay from pollution and sea level rise.

We will use innovative technology to publish an online “Street View” shoreline map. This will give the public and community groups a way to see close-up views of shoreline that are visible now only from a boat.

Baykeeper recently helped improve new regulations to protect San Francisco Bay from an emerging pollution threat: excess nutrients.

Nutrients are substances such as nitrogen or phosphorus that enter the Bay via treated wastewater discharged into the Bay from the region’s sewage plants. Rain also washes nutrient-rich fertilizers from urban gardens and upstream agricultural lands into the Bay. Excess nutrients can cause certain types of algae to grow, which depletes oxygen needed by fish and other sea life.

In response to advocacy from neighborhood and environmental groups, including San Francisco Baykeeper, the Golden State Warriors basketball team will not build a giant basketball arena on the waterfront of the San Francisco Embarcadero. Baykeeper is pleased that precious open-water views of the Bay from the shore south of the Bay Bridge won’t be blocked by the arena, and construction won’t threaten shoreline habitat.

When Point Molate Beach Park in Richmond reopened officially on April 19, Baykeeper received a big thanks for removing 96 tons of toxic debris from the beach last year. Our cleanup helped make the reopening possible. Next month, Baykeeper and volunteers will return to the park to remove more debris, including contaminated logs that have washed on shore since last year’s cleanup and tires stuck in mud near the shore.

Oldcastle Precast, a manufacturer of concrete products, recently agreed to install pollution controls to protect San Francisco Bay from contaminated runoff from its Pleasanton facility. The agreement came in response to Baykeeper’s Clean Water Act lawsuit and will protect the Bay from pollutants that include heavy metals.

On April 16, a federal appeals court ruled that federal contracts to supply water from the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, which promised more water than exists in an average year, were renewed illegally. In a unanimous ruling, an eleven-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco Baykeeper, and other environmental groups.